Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/26/lauren-boebert-thrashes-other-republicans-in-colorado-primary.html
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It’s so disappointing. I swear a lot of people just vote for a name they recognize. Of course, it didn’t help that at least one of her opponents was arguably worse than she is.
ETA: It should also be noted that voter turnout was horrible. Only 17% of eligible voters voted in the Colorado primaries yesterday. That’s really bad. Some of these assholes could be defeated if we can just get people to vote.
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Arrrgh! I thought she would be thrown out on her carpetbagging ass.
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This is it a 100%; few elections I ever been involved in - it’s name recognition, most people voting don’t have time to research each candidate, they look for a name they know and as long as they don’t hate them, that’s who they vote for, especially on a long ballot like that.
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She’s the turd that floated to the top in the toilet.
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One reason is there were many, many races that were unopposed so frankly, looking at the ballot there was really no reason to turn it in. Only a handful of areas had competitive seats.
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That may be a reason why many people aren’t going to vote, but it’s not valid. Not every race was unopposed. And besides, part of the reason so many of these races go unopposed is because so few people are engaged in state and local politics. They think, “What’s the point?” So that low voter turnout drives low interest in running for office which drives low voter turnout. It’s a feedback loop. People should vote anyway. And we all need to work to make more people understand why. State and local politics affect your daily life a lot more directly and immediately than national politics. Go vote. Even if the candidate for dog catcher is running unopposed. Write in someone else if you don’t like the candidate on the ballot. Engage.
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It didn’t help that there were so many candidates running in that primary. If the weaker ones had dropped out, their voters could’ve gone to one of the other non-Boebert candidates and maybe pushed them over the top.
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Yeah, with a nationally recognized name vs. five Republicans most people haven’t heard of it’s not a big surprise. The party might have been able to stop her if they’d put in a coordinated effort to back a less embarrassing candidate but it’s clear that’s not on the GOP’s list of priorities.
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I fully agree and I make it a point to vote regardless. Just pointing out the reality from the point of view of a typical Colorado voter for why the turnout was only 17%.
There’s no space on the ballots for write in candidates (at least in the primaries). Also you only get a ballot if you are registered with one of the parties and most races (at both the state and local level) were not competitive with only one choice presented - CO3 and CO4 notwithstanding.
The Colorado GOP is in total disarray right now with the leader, Dave Williams, even more batshit-crazy than BoBo. Fortunately he just lost his race for CO5 so hopefully that represents a slight shift back to normalcy.
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I actually gasped when I read the news. I live in Colorado. I watched the local news coverage and Boebert’s many stumbles, and it looked like she would be thoroughly thrashed by the other nominees.
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Her what, now???
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I think the only hope is that the initiative to move to open primaries and ranked-choice voting passes. Colorado already allows independents to vote in either party’s primary, but you have to choose which one (can’t do both). The proposal is/is very similar to Final Five voting. Of course, preemtively they’ve already tried to stop that by requiring a bunch of local elections to use it for a couple of years to “prove that it’s not unbearably confusing” for people, but it’s hopefully a step in the right direction.
I find Final Five voting to be very intriguing, but I’d love to hear other people’s arguments for or against it.
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I was not surprised at all. Boebert actually played this one smart by switching to CO4 knowing that she would be a shoo-in if she won the primary given the area is almost exclusively rural populated by farmers and ranchers who would rather cut off an arm than vote for a Democrat.
The road was cleared for her when the state GOP engineered the special election to appoint Greg Lopez to replace Ken Buck and then he turned around and announced he won’t run again in November. The rest of the GOP primary candidates are total nobodies with zero name recognition and several of them trying to out-crazy BoBo.
Lori Weigel, a Republican pollster in Colorado, agreed that the large primary field and Boebert’s name ID played to her advantage. But Weigel said Boebert’s opponents also struggled against her star power.
“I think we are in a topsy-turvy world where it’s an attention economy,” she said. “As we’ve seen at the presidential level, it’s hard to stop an attention-demanding candidate. You can have great policy ideas, but we live in a world where drama demands attention.”
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It is a fair reminder to never count these a**holes out. Five months ago everyone was laughing at the decision and counting her out:
Optimistically, the GOP will still hopefully be down one seat, assuming the Democratic nominee wins her old seat in November. And it’s probably easier for Democrats in Boebert’s new district to run against her than any of the other potential GOP candidates.
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The fact that she won using all that god-talk makes me ill. As long as she tells these Republican Xtians that she has changed her ways and asked God’s forgiveness she’s seen as clean and new by them. The fact that she’s a moron seems of little consequence to these voters, again, because she’s using the god-talk.
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Thanks, i hate it.
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In Boulder there were only two races for the democrat primaries that weren’t people running unopposed and one was a school board and the other was a CU regent. In both cases the big money corporate moderate lost, so yay for that.
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My dem ballot had 5 races on it and only 2 of them had two or more candidates to choose from (WTF is a CU regent anyway and why do I care when I live in Jeffco??)**.
The other was for statehouse representative and when I went to their websites to learn more about each candidate they both had almost identical platforms. We’re supposed to be surprised that less than a quarter of eligible voters even bothered to return their ballot? 
Such is the case during primary elections. Had I lived in CO4, I damn well would have made sure to switch parties just so I could vote against Boebert…but I’m the minority voter who actually researches candidates and issues and understands how the system works. Most people don’t give more than 5 seconds thought and simply looks for the letter after the candidate’s name to decide.
**I actually do know what the Board of Regents is but ask anyone on the street and I doubt they have a clue. It’s notable that the quarterback, CJ Johnson of the 1990 championship team (the infamous 5th down game) lost the primary yesterday. I guess name recognition isn’t always a sure bet.
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Chicago is notorious for people changing their name to make it appear more Irish in heritage, especially with the judges, which in Chicago is an elected office with no party affiliation, so there’s nothing for a voter to hang their hat on otherwise.
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